Fact Check: Did New Jersey Senator Hire Underage Prostitutes?

The New Jersey Senate race between Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democratic incumbent, and his Republican challenger, Bob Hugin, a former pharmaceutical executive, has become unexpectedly close and increasingly nasty. Hugin has dug deep into his pocket to hammer Menendez, spending more than $10 million on negative ads.

Posted 7:52 p.m. Oct 17, 2018 — Updated 7:58 p.m. Oct 17, 2018

Nick Corasaniti

, New York Times

His most recent ad focuses on the most salacious details stemming from allegations against Menendez during his last re-election campaign: that he and his friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida doctor, frequently hired underage prostitutes while vacationing in the Dominican Republic.

But it has never been proven. It came from an anonymous tipster whose identity has never been publicly revealed. And it was not included in a 68-page indictment on federal corruption charges brought against the two men, which culminated in a trial last year that ended in a hung jury.

Menendez has vehemently denied the allegations. During an initial investigation, two women who had told The Daily Caller, a conservative website, in a video that Menendez had paid them for sex while in the Dominican Republic later recanted their allegations, claiming they had been paid to make the accusations.

Yet a new ad from Hugin repeats the allegations as uncontested facts. While the federal government charged in a court document during Menendez’s trial that “the Government took responsible steps to investigate these serious criminal allegations, which were not so ‘easily disprovable,’ as the defendants suggest,” the Hugin ad takes liberties with the unsubstantiated allegations.

— “What about the underage girls who accused you, according to the FBI?”

This is misleading.

The allegations were made by an anonymous tipster who called himself Pete Williams, a wry reference to a former senator from New Jersey, Harrison “Pete” Williams, who was convicted in 1981 of taking bribes. The tipster first reached out to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning legal watchdog group. The group eventually passed the allegations to the FBI.

The ad refers to an FBI affidavit filed to show probable cause for a search warrant. In the affidavit, Special Agent Gregory J. Sheehy, recounts his attempts to investigate the tipster’s allegations:

“As of the writing of this Amended Affidavit, Mr. Williams has refused to meet with the F.B.I., either by phone or in person. Mr. Williams has not disclosed enough information for the F.B.I. to identify any minors.”

— “President Obama’s Justice Department had evidence that for several years Menendez had been traveling to the Dominican Republic to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes, some of whom were minors.”

This is misleading.

This part turns on a very loose use of the phrase “had evidence.”

According to the affidavit, Sheehy attempted to corroborate the allegations. He is able to confirm that Menendez had been in the Dominican Republican at the same time as one unidentified woman who, through the tipster, said she had sex with Menendez.

Sheehy also notes in the affidavit that during a raid of Melgen’s office in Florida FBI agents discovered a notebook containing the names of several women, many of whom are identified by a single name in quotes:

In that notebook, the agents noticed that Senator Menendez’s name was listed along with his phone number. Based on a description provided by fellow agents, and in reliance upon their training and experience in prostitution investigations, your Affiant described the notebook in the original search warrant affidavit as a notebook that “looked to be a ledger of prostitution activities.”

He noted that one woman, identified as M.C., was using a different internet IP address than the tipster to send emails and was likely a different person.

But the two women Sheehy does get in touch with offer outright denials:

“Y.F.” denied that she had ever worked as a prostitute. She also said that she never saw Dr. Melgen or Senator Menendez in the company of any prostitutes or underage females.

and:

Buchyk denied, however, that she had ever worked as a prostitute, and she said that she never saw Dr. Melgen or Senator Menendez in the company of either prostitutes or underage females.

Two other women who are cited in Sheehy’s affidavit as having made similar allegations to The Daily Caller later recanted their story, saying they were paid to make up the allegations against Menendez.

Two U.S. military personnel who had attended parties thrown by Melgen were also interviewed by Sheehy. They had never met Menendez but also denied witnessing any underage prostitution:

According to Coultrup, on three separate occasions during that trip, there were two girls present (all above 18) with the group. Coultrup never observed the girls engage in any type of sexual behavior with any of the men and never saw money exchange hands. Coultrup denied that the women were there for the purpose of engaging in prostitution. Coultrup claimed that the women were there to “chat up” the men.

— “Your lawyers even argued that having sex with underage girls overseas would hardly be a federal crime.”

True.

This is a fairly accurate representation of the arguments that Menendez’s lawyers made in one of their many motions to dismiss the charges against their client and Melgen.

According to a rebuttal brief filed by prosecutors contesting a motion to dismiss:

The defendants present their case as exceptional because the allegations of underage prostitution are “such easily disprovable allegations about something that would hardly be a federal crime even had it been true.” Id. As an initial matter, it is most certainly a federal crime to leave the country for the purpose of engaging in a commercial sex act with a minor, and the defendants’ suggestion to the contrary is unsettling.

Nonetheless, the ad attempts to paint an overall unproven accusation as supported by federal law enforcement, when that is simply not the case.

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